WCI #318: 1099 Income and Locums Docs

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.

This is White Coat Investor podcast. 318 questions from Locum Docs. Love what you hear on the podcast. Looking for more great white Coat Investor content? Head over to our YouTube channel where you can watch video recordings of our podcast, short snippets of financial tips explained succinctly by me and others, and deep dives into topics for more in depth learning. You can even learn all about real estate with webinars from our real estate partners. Check out all this and more@YouTube.com thewhitecoatinvestor you can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Hey, I also want to make sure you know about a special page we.

Have at the White Coat Investor that we call our Retirement Accounts page. You can find it at whitecoatinvestor.com retirementaccounts.

But if you are looking for resources to help you to set up a retirement plan at your practice, this is where you go to get help. We have a list of vetted companies there that have done this for many white coat investors that you can find on that page. In addition, you'll find a list of self directed individual 401 and IRA providers. We also have a list of the regular solo 401 plan providers that you've.

Heard of ranging from Vanguard to E.

Trade, as well as our recommended HSA providers. So if you're not sure who we recommend for all of those resources, those are all found on one page. It's called whitecodeinvestor.com retirementaccounts and you can find it under the recommended tab@whitecoatinvestor.com all right, how's that for an ad?

That's not an ad.

Welcome back to the podcast. I missed you guys. I was working hard last week in the er, not doing a lot of white code investor stuff. I had a lot of shifts. I think it was spring break for half the group.

They're in a different district than the district I'm in and so I ended up working a whole bunch of my shifts last week for the month and it was work.

A lot of people came in, it.

Was hopping most of those entire shifts.

So I know you're out there doing the same thing, working hard and I'm grateful for it. Every time I call a consultant that knows something about medicine that I don't know or can do something that I can't do. I remember how grateful I am for.

Docs like you out there, so thanks if nobody's told you that recently.

Okay, let's get into your questions. You got a lot of great questions today. A lot of stuff from people who.

Are locums docs, but not everything.

So let's get into your questions. I think the first one comes from Caitlin on the speak pipe. Let's take a listen.

Hey Dr. Dali, I don't have a question, but did want to share a mini milestone and PSA for anyone involved in medical education. I followed your advice and tried to get disability insurance during my intern year, but was unfortunately told that I would never qualify for disability insurance because I have type 1 diabetes. Fortunately, my residency program partnered with one of the big five to offer a guaranteed standard issue plan with no medical underwriting, a unisex rate, and all the recommended riders. Now, as a PGY3, I just signed for my disability insurance policy and it's honestly a huge relief knowing that I have own occupation coverage and it removes some of the urgency that I felt to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible because now I know that I have a backup if, God forbid, anything should happen. I'm super grateful to my program for offering the policy and wanted to encourage anyone who's involved in medical education to try and arrange something similar for their own trainees.

Okay, that was less a question than a public service announcement, but it was really useful. A few things I want to comment on there. First of all, get disability insurance. If you're not financially independent, go get disability insurance. Unless there's no way you can get it, go get it. But you might be surprised. The process when you have a problem is going to an independent agent and talking to them about the problem and then they shop you around informally. You're not actually applying for disability insurance. They're calling up principal and they're calling up guardian going, hey, I got somebody with rheumatoid arthritis. They were on methotrexate two years ago. Now they're fine, whatever, right? And seeing if they'll give coverage before you apply, so it's not a surprise. So that's the way you do it.

When you have any sort of a medical problem.

Guaranteed standard issue is another option for a lot of people. Typically, to get them you got to be in a big institution though, you got to be in residency, you got.

To be faculty there, et cetera.

But we have a blog post about this. You can find this@whitecoatinvestor.com guaranteed standard issue disability insurance. And it talks all about GSI insurance. Guaranteed standard disability. Basically these are insurance policies you can get even if you have diabetes or some other medical problem. Okay, but the real gold in this post, I mean, it's a good post, don't get me wrong, the real gold in the post is in the comments below. It where a bunch of agents from all over the country that have a GSI contract with a given institution give you their name in the institution so you can find your institution there and find out who's the agent and go see that person. So if you're in this situation, that's the post you should go to. If you can't remember all that, just search GSI on the WCI site and.

You will find that post.

But definitely a great way to get.

Disability insurance for a lot of people that can't otherwise get it.

All right, next question. Oh, before we get to this one, we got a scholarship. We're giving money away. If you are interested in having money, you should apply for the scholarship. It's literally a check. I write you a check and we send it to you. Last year it was like $7,000 or something to each of the 10 winners and you can use it for whatever you want. In order to qualify though, you got.

To be in school. Professional school.

Brick and mortar professional school. Most applicants are physicians and dentists.

There's a few other categories that you can apply in. Most of the winners end up being again, physicians and dentists. A couple different categories this year that you can apply in. We're also going to try not to.

Give it to anybody that already has.

A full ride scholarship this year. That's a new requirement we've got.

If you're interested in that, it's whitecoatinvestor.com scholarship. But what we really need, we're going to get 800 people that apply for.

This, no matter how much I publicize it.

What we really need though are people to judge it. Because we as white code investor staff.

Do not judge this scholarship. The audience does.

And so each year we need 40, 50, 60, 70 judges to help us wade through these scholarship essays.

And they're all only a thousand words long and you only get sent like 10 of them.

So your commitment's to read like 10.

Essays of a thousand words and help us choose the winners.

You gotta be available during September to do it.

It's helpful if you can be available for the whole month of September. So if you're going to the Grand.

Canyon for half of September. You're gonna be in Antarctica or something.

Maybe don't apply, but Otherwise, please email.

Scholarshiphitecodeinvestor.Com put Volunteer Judge in the email.

And we'll get you signed up. You can't be a resident. You can't be a student and be a judge. You got to be like, either practicing professional or you got to be retired.

Okay, next question from Nicole. We're going to talk about I Bonds.

Hi, Nicole from Michigan and I have a question on I bonds for 2023. At the beginning of 2022, it seemed pretty intuitive to just go ahead and do I Bonds because the rates were so high. With those rates coming down and how long you're locked in for five years without losing some interest. Would you still be investing in I bonds right now at 6.89% through April 30, 2023? I'm also kind of playing into this. CD rates being so high right now in the mid 4% ish range. Would you still be investing in I bonds or maybe considering putting some money in CDs because it's so high as part of, like, the more conservative part of your portfolio? What do you think?

Okay, well, you're absolutely asking the right questions. You're thinking the right way about I bonds and about CDs. These are the safe assets in your portfolio. CDs, bonds, money market funds, EE savings bonds, I savings bonds, TIPS. These are all the sort of things.

That are in the safe money portion of your portfolio. Now, obviously, nothing's 100% safe, but these.

Are far safer assets than stocks or real estate. So you're thinking about them the right way. What you put that money in, let's be honest, doesn't matter all that much. You just need to come up with.

A plan, stick with it.

For many of us, it's a pretty.

Small part of our portfolio. Like in my case, it's only 20%.

Total that goes into these safe assets. The rest is in risky assets.

60% is in stocks and 20% in real estate. So I'm only messing with 20% of my portfolio here. So I try not to make it too complicated.

I just split mine 50, 50 down the middle. Half of it's indexed to inflation.

The other half is not.

And that's the approach we've taken. And that seems to work pretty well for us on the inflation side. We've got tips, whether in a fund or bought directly at treasurydirect. And we have I bonds, which we started buying, you know, a couple of years ago.

And obviously you can't get that many in your portfolio because each person can only buy $10,000 a year of them. So it's hard to, you know, if you want to invest a million dollars into them, you just.

So we started doing that a couple years ago. We've continued doing that.

I did it this year in January, just like I did a backdoor Roth ira.

On the other side of the portfolio is nominal bonds.

In our case, we've maxed out my TSP from my military service with the G fund and the rest is basically a municipal bond fund.

Now a CD I would put on the nominal side. I bonds I would put on the inflation index side. You can argue back and forth all the time of whether I bonds are better to buy right now or tips.

Are better to buy right now and.

Then three months from now. The answer may be completely different. Clearly, with inflation coming down, the I bond rate is not going to be.

As good as it was last year. Last year was like the best investment out there. It was almost 10% with basically no risk of loss.

Is it going to be that good this year?

No.

Is inflation still going to be above average? I think so.

I think you can count on getting.

A decent return for another year or two from them. But even if it goes beyond there, remember what happens with I bonds. If inflation spikes its ugly head again. Eight years from now and you still own these I bonds, that rate goes back up. And you've already got not just the 10,000 you can buy that year, you got all these ones you've been buying.

Each year since whose rate also goes up.

So I think it's okay to invest in I bonds.

I would not bounce around so much where you're trying to jump from one thing to another all the time. Just follow your long term plan plan if you like I bonds and their.

Investment characteristics, then add those every year to your portfolio.

If you don't, it's okay.

They're not mandatory. Remember how they work though. You can't sell them for a year after you buy them. And if you sell them between the end of the first year and the end of the fifth year, you lose three months of interest.

So there is a little bit of a penalty to not hold onto them for five years.

But even when you add that in, it might still make sense to sell.

Them after two or three years.

So if you're bouncing around really looking for the very best yields and you're like, okay, now CDs are a little bit better than what I'M getting in I bonds. I'm going to sell the I bond and get CDs. That's reasonable to do.

I don't watch that closely. It just doesn't matter that much to me. And so I think it's fine what you're doing, but I'm continuing to just invest in I bonds every year with a relatively small portion of my portfolio.

Hope that's helpful. All right, next question from Paul.

He's a locum doc, so let's take.

This question hi Dr. Dao, my name is Paul Deloney. I want to thank you for all the help that you gave us with sharing all this information for the past over 10 years. Here's the question. I'm a 1099 earner with the Lowcom Agency. I missed the deadline to set up my solo 401k plan for 2022. I want to set up a SEP IRA so that I can make the contribution before tax day. Later on, rollover that SEP IRA to a solo 401k all with Vanguard for myself so that I can comply with the Roth IRA pro rata rule. Am I missing anything here? Thanks.

Fantastic question. Well done on thinking about your retirement accounts. I kind of wish you'd thought about it a little bit earlier. It is easier to set it up earlier in the calendar year than it is to do now as I'm recording this podcast. It's April 17th, so tomorrow's tax day. Maybe you filed an extension to give.

Yourself more time, but chances are I think you've either already found the answer to this question or done something else.

Here's the deal. I used to recommend for people who didn't start the solo 401 before the.

End of the calendar year that they do a SEP ira. Because you can open a SEP IRA very quickly. You know, the day you pay your taxes, basically a Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever, and make that contribution and put it on the taxes and get that tax deduction.

And then you had until the end of the year to start solo 401k and roll your SEP IRA in there without getting prorated at the end of.

The year on your backdoor Roth IRA contribution. Now I know that was a lot of big words for a lot of you out there and unfortunately it'd take me about 20 minutes to go through explanation of all of those words. But the bottom line is if you're self employed you want to have a retirement account and the best one is a Solo 401.

But traditionally that has been hard to.

Set up if you don't do it by October or so of the calendar year.

Well, Secure Act 2.0 changed the rules. So 401s that you start after the calendar year have always been able to get employer contributions, but now they can.

Get employee contributions too.

But that's starting for tax year 2023. This question's about tax year 2022. So you do have to do the.

SEP IRA this year and then start a solo 401 and roll the SEP IRA in there.

But you understand it just fine.

You're just looking for confirmation that what.

You'Re doing is right and it is.

And will work just fine. But for those in future years, know that you could, you can now have a little more time to really use a solo 401 after the end of the calendar year, but before your tax day.

All right, a quote of the day today comes from Jeff Steiner who said a budget is the most powerful and cheapest skill you can use to manage your finances.

And that is very true. Thank you Dr. Steiner for that and for your book.

All right, here's a question from Matthew.

Hi Jim, this is Matt in Minnesota. I have a quick question about 1099 income. I'm a W2 employee in the highest tax bracket in a high tax state. I max out all my tax deferred space in my retirement accounts and this year I started doing some consulting that I anticipate will probably bring in a slow to mid five figure sum. Traditionally, I've heard you talk about opening Solo 401 for a contribution of up to 20% as an employer contribution. However, on a recent podcast you mentioned something about customizing the Solo 401k plan to allow for mega backdoor Roth contribution of the full after tax amount. Can you talk a little bit more about that and sort of the implications of that and the cost involved with setting up that plan and when it's worth it from a perspective of how much you're making. And Alternatively, for a first year with 1099 income, how do you determine estimated quarterly payments or a safe harbor? And is it safe to simply determine the tax at the end of the year if there is no preexisting 1099 income from prior years? Thanks for any of your input. It'd be very helpful to have some of your insight.

Okay, lots of questions there. The first one though is best answered by if you go to whitecoatinvestor.com retirementaccounts you will see a list of providers.

There's a list of people that set up 401 s and other retirement plans for your practice, you and your employees.

There is a list of self directed and customized Solo 401 providers. And there's a list of cookie Cutter.

Or standard Solo 401 providers. The cookie cutter ones, the vanguards, the fidelities, et cetera.

They're not customized, they're not self directed.

You can't invest them in bitcoin and gold and real estate and and syndications and that sort of stuff.

You have to have a customized self directed one for that. And I say customized and self directed. Those don't necessarily have to go together.

But they usually do.

Is that worth doing? Well, one big advantage of having a customized one is you can have the.

Rules put in it that allow you.

To do a mega backdoor Roth IRA. And at your level of 1099 income, that makes a big difference in how.

Much you can contribute.

Let's say you make $50,000 in 1099 income. If you do that as a regular employer contrib, you can only put in $10,000.

Right. It's 20% of your net self employment income.

But if you did it as a mega backdoor Roth IRA contribution, you could put in all $50,000. So that's the benefit. Yeah, it's going to cost you something.

It's going to cost you a few hundred dollars to set that up. It's going to cost you a few hundred dollars a year to keep it going.

But you get to defer 50 grand, right? That's a lot more than $10,000. So someone in your situation, it may be worth doing.

That's where you would go to set that up.

Your other question was about quarterly estimated payments. And the way to think about this.

Is to keep in mind that there.

Are two separate things going on. One is you have to pay taxes.

Okay?

And it's a certain amount each year. You really don't figure out exactly what it is, but it's supposed to be a pay as you go system.

You pay taxes along as you go.

And then come April, you settle up with whatever your tax bill actually is. And you might have to write a check, you might get a tax refund. And that's totally separate. The amount of tax that you owe is totally separate from what you pay as you go along, from what's withheld and from what you make as quarterly estimated payments. Those are not the same amounts. That's why you have to settle up every April 15th. And so what you're doing here with quarterly estimated payments is you're recognizing that you have Additional income for which nobody is withholding tax for you. It's supposed to be a pay as you go system, right? If you don't pay as you go, you could get penalized.

Now you don't get like thrown in jail or something. You just got to like pay some interest on it. It's not a big deal.

But if you want to avoid doing.

That, you pay as you go.

So what the first thing people do when they have a little bit of 1099 income is they just decrease their how much is or they increase how.

Much is withheld at their W2 job.

You know, if you make eight grand.

In 1099 work, you can do that. You can cover the tax bill, no problem, right?

But if you make $250,000 at your 1099 gig, that's not going to work. You can't withhold enough from that W2 gig to cover that tax bill. And so what you have to do.

Is start making quarterly estimated payments. And this is like really hard.

It's hard to get them right. It's fine if you don't get it right because you're going to settle up next April 15th. If you didn't pay enough, you'll pay a little bit of interest. Not a big deal. But it does cost you some interest you didn't have to pay as long as you have the tax money. The bigger problem for doctors is they.

Don'T set anything aside for taxes, right?

So when you're making 1099 money, you ought to assume that something like 25.

Or 30% of that is going to go to the tax man.

So if you have to take that out and set it in a separate savings account so it's there come April 15th so you can actually pay the.

Taxes or so it's there when you make your quarterly estimated payments.

But the easy way to make quarterly estimated payments is take a guess at what you think you're going to owe for the year. Divide it by four, send that in.

Each quarter, and remember that it's not like real quarters.

It's on April 15th, and then two months later on June 15th, then three months later on September 15th, and then four months later on January 15th. So the hard one for me is always June 15th, because I only had two months to save up for it. But that's when you send those in. You're trying to get in the safe harbor. If you're in the safe harbor, you.

Don'T have to pay that, any interest or penalties or anything for underpaying as you go along.

And the easiest way to be in the safe harbor if you're all 1099.

Is to figure out what your tax.

Bill was last year. Multiply it by 110%.

This is for high earners. You only have to multiply it by 100% if you're not a high earner.

And then divide it by 4 and.

Pay that each quarter.

But if you have W2 income and you also have this 1099 income, it's really hard. You're guessing. And the only way to know for sure is to like project out your taxes and know what your income is going to be.

And lots of us don't.

This is incredibly difficult for me. Every year I'm trying to guess what.

To do for my quarterly estimates.

Okay, last year I totally missed and so I have this massive tax refund coming. I have basically loaned hundreds of thousands.

Of dollars to the government that I.

Should not have done. So and so sometimes you just blow it. You know, it's just not that easy. I didn't know what I was going to make. I didn't know the business was going to do. I didn't know about some investments that were going to pay off. You know, I didn't know about some income that was going to be pushed. I guessed on how much my quarterlies were going to be.

I paid way too much in quarterlies. And so I'm getting a whole bunch of it back and that's fine. You know, I give the government a, you know, interest free loan. It's not the end of the world. But it's ideal not to do that if you can avoid it and so.

Do the best you can the first year. They do give you a little bit.

Of leniency, but I wouldn't count on that. I'd try to comply with the law. Just remember the basic principles you have to pay taxes.

It's a pay as you go system for the feds. Not all states are that way.

Utah isn't that way. But for the feds, it's a pay as you go system.

So if you're making any significant amount.

And I'd say significance more than 20 grand and 1099 income, plan to start making quarterly estimated payments.

Okay, let's take a question from Randall.

Hi, Dr. Dali. I have a couple of questions about locums. They're kind of separate, so we'll ask them in two separate speak pipes. I am an anesthesiology resident and I'm strongly considering doing locums when I graduate, at least for a few years. I know you've had few people on the podcast that have done locums for a while, but I feel like most, if not all of them have been single when they were doing it. Whereas I am married, have one young child and hopefully we'll have more on the way. I was just wondering if there was anybody who could come on and talk about their experiences or if you anecdotally have secondhand experiences from people that have done this as a family and what sort of things I might be missing that would be ramifications of moving that often on family life. We are planning to probably homeschool my kids at least when they're younger for a little while. So I don't think that part would be impacted as much. Would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

Okay, so that's a call for a guest on the podcast.

You guys know how to apply for that? Go to whitecoatinvestor.com under the about page you'll see a podcast guest policy. That's where you can apply to be a podcast guest if you are in that situation.

I don't know very many people in that situation.

I think it's pretty rare and so I'm going to guess we're not going to get a guest. So I'm just going to ramble about it and give you my thoughts about it. Here's the deal.

This works fine for people who are.

Married, particularly just after they get married. I've met a lot of people, doctors, physical therapists, whatever, who did this for a few years after they got married, after they came out of school, whatever, had a great time, went to New.

Zealand, went to Alaska, practiced in Canada, whatever. They just did all kinds of cool stuff. I also know people who have done.

It at the beginning of their career.

Including anesthesiologists that have done it like you're doing. They get out there, they make tons of money, they're getting their living expenses paid, they've got, you know, a spouse, maybe a young kid, and they do this for a few years and then.

Kind of settle down after a while.

But this is your life, you get to create it. And the thing that forces most families to settle down a bit is kids in school. And when kids are in school, it's hard to move around a bunch and to be world travelers, particularly as they.

Get into high school and get involved in high school kind of activities, and they have AP tests and things that are just harder to miss. And so while we haven't done this, we've settled down basically when we moved into our current house. Our, our oldest was 6 years old. She's now in college. So I think this is traditional path that most people do is kind of what we're on.

But you can do whatever you want. And if you're willing to homeschool, you can travel the world. You're not limited just to being in the US Even. You could go all over the place.

And have a great time.

So it's up to you and your.

Family what you're willing to do.

But I bet you go do this.

For a while and then kind of feel like settling down a little bit, and that's fine.

Go have an adventure. It'll be great. You can get paid a little bit more often doing locums.

They'll cover a lot of your living expenses.

You know, one year old doesn't care.

Where he or she lives. You know, and if you and your spouse want to get out and do.

Something cool for a while, go for it. Maybe it lasts 10 years, maybe it lasts 15 years. Maybe you do it for your entire career.

I have no idea.

But I think it can be done.

I just don't think there's very many people doing it. Most locums peoples are singles at the.

Beginning of their careers. I think there's plenty toward the end of their career.

They just want a little more control over how much they're working.

And then I think people occasionally do.

It sabbatical, like during the career when they lose a job or something like that.

But deliberately doing it with a family.

For your whole career, I think you're in fairly rare company. But I wouldn't let that discourage you from doing it if that's what you want. This is a very doable thing. And what's the point of financial freedom if you can't live the life you want?

Okay, before we get to your other question, Randall, I want to make sure people know about an income opportunity we have out there.

It's basically doing surveys for money. Like, they want your opinion and they'll pay you for it. You can go to whitecodeinvestor.com paidsurveys and.

Get yourself some of that 1099 income we're talking about. One of our columnists makes like 30 grand a year on medical surveys now. It's easier in some specialties than others. They really want your opinion.

Apparently. If you're a neurologist and an oncologist.

And a rheumatologist and somebody that prescribes expensive medications, I don't think there's quite.

As much demand for emergency docs on those surveys, but there's no reason you can't try.

We've got a list of companies that.

Offer that I just sign up for all of them on that page.

We took one off recently.

We got a few complaints about it, and we do that when we vet companies.

But there's still five companies on that.

List and people seem happy. They're getting paid, they're making money, and.

You can do them while you're sitting on the train on your way home.

From work or whatever. But check that out.

Whitecoatinvestor.com paid surveys.

And yes, there are some opportunities even for residents and fellows to do those. All right, Randall, let's take your other question.

Hi Dr. Dali. This is my second question about locums. So for people who do locums, I'm just wondering what the best way to structure their career is. I know that there are places like Locum Story, and I think there's another one that also endorses WCI that just help physicians find jobs. And I assume that you're a 1099 contractor for those companies when you do that. That makes sense to me. Starting out, I wonder for people who end up doing locums for a long time and kind of know how to navigate it themselves, if it would make more sense to cut out the middleman and if so, if being a sole proprietorship or an S corp would be helpful in some way for taxes. I know that S corps get a discount on the Medicare tax, but I was recently listening to your podcast, I think 303, where you mentioned that if you're just looking to save on taxes and you're running your savings essentially and investments through a corporation, that you can end up getting them double taxed once in the corporation and once when you take them out. So I guess I'm a little unclear when doing a corporation is helpful and when it might actually be hurtful. Thanks.

Okay. Remember, when you're getting paid on a.

1099, you're in business for yourself. You're an independent contractor.

You do not have an employer. You have a company that your company contracts with. Whether your company is a sole proprietorship, whether it's a partnership, whether it's an llc, whether it's an S corp, whether it's a C corp, you're in business for yourself. So, and I think that's the way most locum gigs are set up. Some might bring you on and have.

You be a W2 employee at that hospital, but typically you're going to be contracting and it's going to be the hospital paying you. I don't know, maybe it goes through the locums company. Either way, you know you're going to be getting a 1099 most of the time.

That means you get to select your own health insurance. It means you get to select your own retirement plans. It means you get to be in control. It's generally a good thing.

You just got to make sure you're getting paid adequately. Obviously if you're going from a W2 job to a 1099 job and they.

Pay exactly the same, that W2 job.

Was paying half your payroll taxes for you and giving you a 401 match. You just took a step down and pay if you're paying for all that yourself. So you got to compare apples to apples there anytime you make those comparisons.

But what should you do? Well, you mentioned you're an anesthesiologist and you're only going to be doing locum.

So probably all your pay is going to be 1099. You're probably going to be making four or five or six hundred thousand dollars.

I'm guessing that is enough 1099 income, enough self employment income that an S corp is probably going to be worthwhile for you. And let's say you're making $600,000.

The way you do this is you'd.

Say well my salary is going to be $300,000. We'll call the other $300,000 distribution from the S corp. And what that saves you is the medicare tax on that.

$300,000 you call distributions. This might save you close to $10,000 a year in taxes. That's the point of the S Corp. You're not running your investments through it. It sounds like you got confused between somebody trying to do something else with a corporation that probably didn't make any sense. But for a doctor that's got this sort of self employment income, this sort of thing often makes sense.

So go ahead and take a look at that.

And that is probably something you will want to do as a 1099 anesthesiologist as form and escort. Hope that's helpful to you in navigating your plans. It's pretty exciting. I'm kind of looking forward to hearing from you in a few years and hear about the adventures you've been having.

All right, I think this is Tim.

In Salt Lake City.

It used to be Tim in, in San Francisco.

All right, we got Tim back.

Let's see what Tim's got to say.

He's not liking this house he's got in Salt Lake, apparently. Let's find out why.

Hi, Jim. This is Tim in Salt Lake City. My family and I are fortunate enough to have been able to afford to buy a house here recently in Salt Lake City. We followed your advice of waiting till our situation was really stable. Our kids are in school, and so we're excited to be homeowners. But I got to admit, I'm not a big fan so far of the tasks associated with upkeep. My wife and I are both physicians, and we're quite busy. Time is at a premium. Do you have any tips on how to balance the convenience and ease of getting little tasks done around the house? Repairs, shoveling the sidewalks, cleaning versus the money that it takes to get those things done? Do you try to get three quotes for things? Do you get references from neighbors? Do you like Yelp? I'm trying to navigate this and figure out how to make things both as economical and efficient as possible.

Thanks, Tim. This was not a normal winter.

All right.

Alta got 877 inches of snow so far this year.

It's probably even more today. We're probably over 900 inches of snow at the ski resort a few miles from my town.

We normally don't have to shovel this much. I promise. Get yourself a snowblower.

I swear, it's usually not this bad.

But, yeah, it's a good question. I mean, all of us start going, what's my time worth? How can I buy some more of it?

And we start looking at these tasks, and maybe it's mowing the lawn, maybe it's cleaning up leaves, maybe it's shoveling snow, maybe it's cleaning the house.

And then there are things that we don't know how to do.

Maybe we need to hire a handyman to do something, or a plumber or an H VAC person or whatever.

So the nice thing about the little.

Things is that they're repetitive.

So if you're getting crummy service, you.

Fire the person, you move on to another one, and it's no big deal, right? You don't like the way they're shoveling your driveway, you tell them, fix it, or I'm getting someone new.

They don't fix it. You get someone new.

And so I think that's fine.

You'll often get a better price if you use somebody that's already coming into.

The neighborhood to do work.

So if your neighbors are getting their driveways plowed, ask who they're using, because you'll probably get a better deal from.

That person because they're already in the neighborhood. Same thing with lawn care is you'll often get a discount if they can come and do two yards right next to each other because they don't have.

To put the lawnmowers back in the.

Truck in between the two jobs, it's just easier for them. So you get a better deal.

So, yeah, talk to your neighbors and.

See who they're using. But otherwise you can just Google things up and google your area and snow removal and see who comes up and try somebody out.

And if they're terrible, you fire them, move on to somebody else. It's a little different when you want.

Work done kind of as a one time deal. You know, now you need your furnace replaced or something. Now I think is when you get.

Into the talking to your contractor friends.

You are going to be looking at Yelp reviews. You're going to be doing these sorts of things to determine what to do with regard to who to fire.

And the general rule is pick three and take the middle bid because the person bidding the least is not going.

To do very good work and the.

Person bidding the most is ripping you off. But I think it's good to have.

Three people come by and just pick the one you feel most comfortable with, whether it's the lowest bid or the highest bid or whatever. But I think that's a good way to do those sorts of contractors.

But there are all kinds of things. The more creative you get, the more you can outsource. You can get virtual assistants that can do all kinds of stuff. There are laundry services, there are meal prep services. You can have a chef come in, you can have a nanny or an au pair. Lots of docs have somebody coming in.

And cleaning their house. We've done that.

Keep in mind you still have to pick it up.

We had one once that fired us because we weren't very good at picking it up. It took us a while, it took.

Us till the second one to really train ourselves to pick up the house.

Before they came over. But we've got somebody great now that comes in a couple of times a month and cleans the house and saves us from that chore.

But you can hire just about anything you want out.

It's just a matter of your time and your money and your comfort level. Really. A lot of people aren't comfortable having other people in their home. But that's all up to you. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the winter. It was pretty spectacular. If you're a skier, love what you.

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